Was Rey originally going to be a Skywalker?

[Brian G Turner]

So, I was re-watching one of the teaser trailers to The Force Awakens, and at one point there's a quote from Luke in Return of the Jedi:

However, it reverses Luke's quote a little, by having "You have that power, too." at the end of the speech about the Force being strong in his family, rather than at the end.

Along with all the mirroring of Luke's origin story - an orphan raised on a desert planet, with a fascination for the Rebellion - everything looked set up for Rey to be a Skywalker.

I still feel cheated that the 3rd film in the new trilogy claimed she was a clone of Palpatine - I think the writer of that missed some basic biology lessons on genetics.

I also remember the actor for Rey saying her true origin was obvious.

However, does anyone know if this really was the original plan for Rey's background? I just don't know enough about what happens behind the scenes to know.

 

[KGeo777]

In 2005 Gary Kurtz gave an interview where he stated what he remembered as the outline of the films after TESB and before he parted ways with Lucas.

For the sequels, Han Solo would have died in ROTJ, Luke would go off to find "the Other" (who was not Leia), and the Emperor would be confronted for the final movie. I don't remember if he said that "the Other" was supposed to be a blood relative or just someone with particular Force sensitivity.

 

[HareBrain]

I still feel cheated that the 3rd film in the new trilogy claimed she was a clone of Palpatine

I'm not sure it was claimed she was a clone -- I thought the idea was that there was a child of Palpatine somewhere who was her parent, and who for perhaps obvious reasons they decided to leave vague.

 

[KGeo777]

I suspect they would have wanted to move away from an idea that heredity acts as a positive trait for the character. One reason I think this is because they already did that in SW with Luke being the son of a Jedi (at first assumed to be a noble character in 1977---but by the time of the third film--the most evil Jedi of all).
So in this case, they were more inclined to have her be the daughter of some mean old guy, rather than the hero protagonist.
Maybe just to be different (if we want to be innocent about the potential motivations), or maybe to avoid making the Skywalkers into a kind of royalty.